In Cambodia and beyond, archaeologists and criminologists are fighting the underground trade in cultural treasures.

A small convoy of military trucks rumbled to a stop at the site of the ancient Banteay Chhmar temple in northern Cambodia. The armed men insideundefinedmembers of a rogue military unitundefinedset up roadblocks around the vine-shrouded shrine, cutting it off from the outside world. Then the soldiers put local villagers to work with jackhammers, stripping Banteay Chhmar of its 800-year-old treasures.

The temple's finely sculpted enclosure wall portrayed the rise of the wealthy Khmer Empire that once spanned much of mainland Southeast Asia. The wall's detailed scenes of battles and royal processions were a crucial source of data for archaeologists and historians. But in two weeks of dogged labor, the looters hacked apart a 98-foot-long section of the sculpted wall, chopped it into blocks, and loaded it onto six large trucks. Then they disappeared with the plunder.